No "Roots"

I came to Vietnam to find my roots, the story of where I came from. At the beginning of this journey, I felt a connection to this place. There was an intertwining of stories, mine and that of the people here. But after many years, I haven't found my roots here, and now it feels like the longer I stay the more I feel I have no special bond with Vietnam beyond what I invent in my own mind. The fact that I look Vietnamese and this is the birthplace of my parents is all an illusion, it has no relevance if I give it none. It plays no real role in my identity because the notions that do so, like culture and history, are all fluid and ever-changing. They are dictated by governments and history professors and authority figures. They are dictated by people, just people, who think they own my identity and can tell me who I am or where my roots lie. But now I feel I can just as easily find a purpose among an "alien" people in some remote corner of the world, and no one is to say I don't belong. Who's to argue with what I actually feel?

How did this happen, when a few years ago I felt so proud of my Vietnamese heritage? When I "re-discovered" Vietnam, I felt such a profound sense of duty to the future of this place. I felt like an active member with a say. I felt like there were "non-members," people from outside the culture who were ignorant wanderers or exploiters. I felt a need to "defend" this culture and be involved in whatever direction it was heading. Now I know I was the ignorant one, and that the "right" to be engaged in Vietnam's past and future is not real. It isn't some exclusive club. Perhaps the biggest influence on this paradigm shift was meeting and befriending expats from all over the world, who have every right to belong and feel at home here. They are proof that borders are disappearing and whole cultures are merging. These things are real.

But staying here all this time wasn't for nothing. In a way, I did find my "roots." They are roots not defined by borders, skin color, language, culture, or history. They lie simply with the individual people I love and care about, and these people are as diverse and scattered as all the countries and languages on this planet. I am tied to them, regardless of where ever we are in space and time, and this fulfills me more than any concept of "roots."

Vietnam: Good, Bad, and Ugly

"Every day is a new day," I tell myself, as I gather up everything I've learned from self-help books and regurgitated advice from who knows where. Every day I try to focus on the "here and now" and try to be a better human being, even though the idea of a good human being seems to morph a million times a second. And I'm here in Vietnam, where the test of our human sensibility happens daily. 

There are so many types of expats here, and forgive me as I group these individuals into categories; I'm not trying to say they have no unique qualities on their own. There are the smiley older fellows, and I'm going to have to get racial and say they're white, so as to not mix them together with a different group of older Vietnamese fellows who are to be categorized differently. The older white men almost seem like wiser backpackers, more likely to stop and soak in the contrast a developing country like Vietnam has to whatever Western suburban world they came from, with all its rush to stay ahead of the global game and consumer protection and suffocating demand for accountability of bankers and politicians. 

Then there are young Westerners, who make up the bulk of the English teaching workforce, coming from all corners of the English speaking world, who perhaps had a little more adventurousness among their group of friends back home or were maybe even a bit more romantic, wanting to live that poetic ideal of trekking the world and taking in knowledge of diverse cultures and peoples. Some actually maintain this desire, while others fail miserably and are shocked that encountering people of different cultures meant these people would actually be different, in ways that are not compatible or even "pretty" in their own cultural sense of the word, and return home after a year or so and report that they were unable to venture too far from their comfort zone or maybe even brag that they'd "been there seen that" but really just stuck to a group of four people from their hometown and complained about locals the entire time. 

Some of the more adventurous individuals endowed with a higher threshold for dealing with the "differences" may even end up staying, for a myriad of reasons ranging from no desire to return to a 9-to-5 grind back in the the same neighborhood where they had their uneventful childhood or an attraction to locals of the opposite sex who are perhaps more easy-going, dare I say passive, or simply more physically attractive. And that's fine by me. Since I've been on all sides of countless discussions about the moral, historical, post-colonial, racial arguments expounding the rights and wrongs of expat perceptions and interactions with Vietnamese, I've stopped being any kind of judge altogether. That is not to say I defend those hateful, twisted, and just plain creepy individuals who would probably be locked up in their own country here taking advantage of poor people looking for a way out and contributing in any way big or small to the creation of a sad, inhumane industry catering to their needs. 

I guess I'm writing this to make sense of my own perception of this place and where I am with how I interact with Vietnamese people. My understanding of this place and who I am in relation to it has gone through so many emotionally-charged phases, I admit I'm exhausted and I'm over it. To place it in any historical framework or social paradigm, like I tended to do as a university student, is never conclusive. I've been that Vietnamese American kid searching for his roots and finding his identity among his "people," taught to never forget the historical impact of race and discrimination and how it still "shackles" entire peoples while giving others undue advantages. Then I saw my own "people" taking advantage of their own, those like me who wore their overseas upbringing like a designer suit to manipulate and deceive and get their kicks. I saw not all locals were victims, and they were so willing to step on each other to reach for some superficial niche in this increasing unbalanced and divided country. 

I find myself now in my most comfortable phase yet. I have my friends. 

Digging Up Vietnam

There is a cliche here built up by visitors who know something of Vietnam's recent past: the Vietnamese people are "forgiving" and are focused on the future. Well, that brings to mind another cliche: "Forgive but don't forget." Based on my experience with young people in Vietnam, it would seem forgiving has been made easier by the fact many have actually forgotten. Not to say they were there during the decades of war (the vast majority of them weren't) , but there is a clear disconnect. And whatever minority here is conjuring up the ghosts of history is being shunned and avoided like an old guy at a high school party.

Still worse, those with real interest find themselves at a dead end of propaganda and half-truths, rather than a welcoming dialogue. 

And that lack of dialogue does extend all across the seas to the Vietnamese communities abroad. People only know what they hear, and they only like to hear what they already know.

My journey to fill the gaps of the Vietnam story I heard began at the end of my university years after my trip to study in Hanoi. I took a history class taught by a Vietnamese professor with a degree from Soviet Russia. I had already taken a few classes on Vietnam back at UCLA, but the opportunity to hear it from the source was too tempting. Tempting and difficult, since his English had a mix of Russian and North Vietnamese. But I squandered it. My previous knowledge of Vietnam wasn't enough to make relevant arguments, and I was too distracted by living far from home for the first time to do the research. It's one of my big regrets.

To make up for that I tried to get my hands on all the books I could. Here's a list of the few I've finished and the bits of "puzzle pieces" I got from them. 

This wasn't the first book I read by a Vietnamese writer who witnessed the war. I read Bao Ninh's Sorrow of War while in Hanoi, and it left no lasting impressions. Truong Nhu Tang's book gets some criticism from people who expected details of the jungle fighting, life in tunnels, and contact with American troops. This book isn't written by a guerilla. Truong Nhu Tang was an intellectual and one of the founding members of the government entity that was the political end of the NLF. He was also the first of disillusioned high-ranking cadre to leave Vietnam along with the waves of boat people. 

I learned a few major bits of information about the NLF in this book. First, that they weren't really "communists." Truong himself openly revered Ho Chi Minh from the start, but saw himself and the PRG as more anti-Diem. There's even a vivid retelling of his group's first encounter with their northern "comrades", and the lop-sided debate that ensued, in which Truong's arguments trumped those of his Marxist peers. I discovered this alternative vision of the South that was buried under the black and white retellings of Americans versus Communist guerillas. 

And here now, I don't think that southern vision ever completely died.

Despite it being retold by a non-combatant, there are still descriptions of life in the jungle and air raids that will make any visit to Cu Chi Tunnels much better informed. 

This title is in every list of necessary reads for the period. I always knew this, but was a bit intimidated by its thickness. But it isn't a dry history piece. The reconstruction of 1950s and 1960s Vietnam read like a movie. The description of the Ap Bac battle still tingles my spine and Neil Sheehan's biographical bits on John Paul Vann make him one of the most endearing previously-unknown historical figures I've ever read about. 

The belief that South Vietnam's fate was determined in the Kennedy years with the "advisors" and under Diem is convincing. What's left is the question of whether that outcome would have lasted or would have even been better. This book, which I thought was full of statistics and the names of politicians, is actually loaded with riveting stories of human emotions.  You feel all the pain and disappointment and anger underlying those desperate times.

It is immensely relevant to me. It attempts to explain why my parents' world, a speck of color on a map,  appeared for a moment and was gone.

This is the book I'm working on now. I took my dad to see the Mel Gibson movie and he hated it. To him it's the part of his past he doesn't enjoy, told without mention of his people. That and he just doesn't like Mel Gibson.

As a history book, this only shows a tiny piece of the story. It's not meant for that. The book is one long and detailed retelling of the horrors of one battle, a military history. But if placed in the bigger picture, it does show the American view of itself and the Vietnamese,  as "Bright Shining Lie" does. It's interesting to read this book after "Bright Shining Lie", since the latter argues Moore's battle at Ia Drang was futile for changing the course of the war. Moore thought different.

Insightful or not, it's a captivating book that gives you that little bit of shock when you put it down and walk outside among the people. All the noise is drowned out a bit and you hear this little echo, like the sounds from the book are still going on. Everything briefly takes on a different meaning. The old street ceases to be just an old street choked with motorbikes. It has a story. And the old man in the alley is more than just an old man, he has a story. A really good one.

"You're not American"

Problems with identity seem to be something that should've ended back in frustrated teenager days, but as an American born to Vietnamese parents, living and working in Vietnam, it might never end. Yet, the confused looks and the comments I get from locals when I tell them I'm an American has completely reinforced my own perception of who I am, at least culturally and ideologically.

I love my country -- America. In this world that might be headed towards some kind of post-nationalist paradigm, maybe the idea of loving your country might be going out of fashion, and if I had said I was a proud Costa Rican, maybe the response form other people might be a bit more forgiving, especially in Vietnam. But when a person who looks and speaks Vietnamese says they're American, it is unacceptable and even offensive to some Vietnamese. And I've gotten a lot of different responses, but I think the one that is most hurtful and common is: "Go back to your country." That is the comment that caused me to flip out in a bar last night and inspired this blog.

Because I look Vietnamese and proudly identify with America, I no longer have any right to be here. I can't possibly love Vietnam too. I'm not allowed to love its children who I teach, its culture, its history, and the many local friends I have here. So we can't feel proud of where we came from and at the same time have respect and even admiration for other cultures.

Of course the image of a proud American who looks Vietnamese would be a problem here, given the history between the two countries. Vietnamese children are raised on the idea that America was once a brutal and merciless enemy bent on absorbing Vietnam into it's massive capitalist empire. A walk through the War Remnants Museum here gives a sobering reminder of the people who died because of the arrogance and insensitiveness of a superpower nation. It tore this little country apart, with one side branded the American "puppets." Those "puppets" and their children and grandchildren now live in affluent countries (not by easy means) and some have returned arrogant and pretentious, flaunting their wealth and "developed" way of thinking. I don't blame people here for disliking these people.

What bothers me is another thing that we think we've moved on from, but is more alive than ever - racism. I don't mean the racism that gives birth to racial slurs, I mean the seeing of people and the world based on a hierarchy of race. When a Vietnamese person hears me say "American," an error message appears in their brain and they respond, "you don't look American." My tall, blonde friend next to me can be American, even if his parent's are from Romania or Germany or Macedonia. But I look and speak Vietnamese, hence not American. So forget saying I'm proud to be American. 

This thinking is so commonplace and widespread that it's probably bad for my health to get worked up about it, since it'll just keep happening. But I won't ignore it. I'm not going to let people tell me what I can be a part of, especially when I'm proud for the very fact that America is something that different people can be a part of. And I'm not going to let someone off the hook for not being up-to-date with the struggles and triumphs of colored people in America to possess equal footing with white people, especially if they continue to discriminate based on that ignorance. And most importantly, I won't let anyone tell me where my home is. 

I'm not proud of America for everything it is or does. To be honest, I can't even explain why I'm proud. But I know it's there when people are attacked in Boston, and I feel like I'm part of what happened. When they got Osama Bin Laden, I walked up to the top of a building in Nha Trang and shouted at the top of my lungs. I felt this feeling too, back in June of 2008, at my brother's funeral. My brother was a soldier,  killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb. 

Unlike me, my brother spent most of his childhood in Vietnam. He faced all the dangers of leaving on a small boat just like hundreds of others did. He lived in a refugee camp and waited to be admitted to a place he only heard about. In America, his friends were of all colors and many were immigrants just like him, trying to make sense of what being American meant. He loved playing basketball and he idolized Michael Jordan. He spoke broken English with a heavy Vietnamese accent. After high school, he joined the army and did three tours in Iraq, the third one being his last. 

When he was over there, I spoke proudly of him and what he did. I told people he was defending our country and what America was all about: freedom, democracy, tolerance. Then a few years into it I started to doubt what I said. The purpose of the war in Iraq wasn't so clear and I found it harder to explain what exactly he was doing there. I even questioned my beliefs about being American, and my brother's. I never recalled him saying that he was doing it for patriotic reasons. 

No, he did it for the same reason many poor, urban young people do it, because he didn't have other options. The army offered him some direction at a time when he didn't know where to go.

But I learned what America meant to him when I visited him right after his daughter was born near an American base in Germany. I saw how much he loved his fellow soldiers, again people of all different colors and backgrounds, many of whom were probably there for similar reasons. I remember the look in his eyes when he mentioned the friends he'd lost. He talked about doing another tour to make some money so he could buy a house in California for his family. 

On the day of his funeral at a Catholic cemetery in Los Angeles, dozens of strangers came to offer their condolences. Some were Vietnamese, but most were not. At first I thought they were just friends who knew him in the army, but then as more arrived I realized people were coming from all over the city. Police officers, fire fighters, big bikers on Harley's -- all sorts of people showed up. They were White, Black, Hispanic, Asian -- all there to show respect for someone who gave his life for a place he wasn't even born in. He died for an America that to him, just meant "home." 

So when I'm told I can't be American, I think back to that scene of all those people who are all part of some immigrant story, gathering and standing united in one place and by one idea, honoring my brother who is not white or of European descent, for his service to his country. No one there that day would doubt who my brother or anyone in my family were. We are Americans, not bigoted and fanatical patriots who think we're better than anyone else, just part of the millions of intertwining lives that make up the story of that country.

Staff Sergeant Du Hai Tran

U.S. Army  

Asking Auntie

Me: Auntie, I feel things have changed in Vietnam.

Auntie: What do you mean?

Me: I used to read all these stories about people back during the war, helping each other and working together for a common cause. It's like, if there was ever a model of cooperation among a people, it would be Vietnam. But now, people seem more focused on either getting by or becoming rich. People love to talk about Iphones and pop music; no one likes to talk about bigger things.

Auntie: Back then, people were poor. They believed in what promised them a brighter future.

Me: So now they've achieved it then, I guess. Nothing to fight for anymore. No more enemy.

Auntie: Now, Vietnam is at peace.

Me: There are still plenty of things to fight for.

Auntie: Of course there are, like developing the economy. Taking care of your family.

Me: Right. I guess that's it. Some people make it and everyone benefits. But I'm still confused.

Auntie: About what?

Me: Isn't that everything you fought against? Some will be very rich. They'll have cars, land, big businesses -- things that the average citizen can never get. Isn't history repeating itself...?

Auntie: What are you getting at?

Me: I don't know. I just feel things are getting out of balance. Some people are getting left behind.

Auntie: The Vietnamese are a hard-working people. They always endure.

Me: But how can they do it when they don't have the right resources? The schools in the country aren't up to standard. They're being outcompeted by the children of rich families studying overseas.

Auntie: They will get there. They will study hard. The Vietnamese people value education.

Me: They do. But the motivation isn't enough. They need the right environment to help them get there.

Auntie: That takes time.

Me: Right.

Auntie: OK, I have to go cook dinner now. Your uncle will be home soon.

Me: Oh, sorry Auntie.